Hooked my jayco freedom to the car today, when I plugged the anderson plug to the car the little LED on the car plug came on(car locked & not running) denoting there was 12v present, checked with mmeter & found 12v at the van plug, car of course had no voltage present, is this normal?
Joda
patrol03 said
08:48 PM Feb 1, 2018
I suggest you take your vehicle to an autolec. He will sort out your problem very quickly.The info you have supplied is insufficient for uninformed speculation.Suggest you get it professionally attended to.
Joda said
08:57 PM Feb 1, 2018
Car is fine, worked ok on my previous van,new (2005) van is normal jayco set up, everything in the van works as it should, I just wanted to know should there 12v present at the van anderspn plug.
Joda.
Warren-Pat_01 said
09:41 PM Feb 1, 2018
John, it all depends on how the van is wired up.
The 12v feed must be coming from the van - in a similar manner to how mine was wired (via a 70A breaker) to the battery. I've changed the wiring from the Anderson plugs on my van to feed the fridge.
As patrol03, said an auto electrician can help if there are any dramas.
Joda said
10:18 PM Feb 1, 2018
Thanks Warren-pat 02, I was thinking of doing the same with the fridge & run it directly from the car, I did this with my old van & it worked much better than running it thru the setec unit & the batteries then to the fridge, thanks for the info much appreciated,
JODA..
Willdoe said
10:24 PM Feb 1, 2018
Joda what you have is not abnormal.
If the Anderson plug is connected to a battery in your van without some kind of isolator then voltage will be available at this plug.
The advanced electrical systems in modern cars sometimes throw warnings when they find something that is not it's normal loading which is what happens when you connect to your van. VWs and Mercedes are are very susceptible to this.
Hope this helps.
Joda said
11:01 PM Feb 1, 2018
Thanks Guys, great to have experience out there that You can call on when in doubt,
JODA.
PeterD said
11:49 PM Feb 1, 2018
Joda wrote:
Car is fine, worked ok on my previous van,new (2005) van is normal jayco set up, everything in the van works as it should, I just wanted to know should there 12v present at the van anderspn plug. Joda.
Your van setup is not the normal Jayco setup. They do not come with an Anderson plug. They work everything through the 12 pin trailer connector. The wiring through that connector is usually too light to power the fridge let alone trying to charge the battery as well. That is why the previous owner possibly installed the Anderson connector/circuit as a couple of members suggested. There are a couple of things to check:
1,, Make sure there is a fuse in that cable close to the vans battery. If a short circuit occurs it can make a real mess of the battery (and your van.)
2,, Check to see if the previous owner rewired the fridge so it operates from the battery if left on 12 V. If so you run a great danger of destroying the battery due to over discharging the battery a few times if you forget to switch the fridge off when you stop for a while.
Warren-Pat_01 said
04:59 PM Feb 2, 2018
Joda, further to what PeterD mentioned - if you choose to run the fridge from any battery (van or car), get yourself one of those Fridge Switches to save the battery when you are stationary.
They are not difficult to install (but the location to put one in may not be easy to find). I ended up putting it under the floor near where all the cables come off the A-frame & have protected it against the weather/wet roads. They have to be installed "This way up".
The main issue with going via the 12-pin plug is that the plastic plug may show signs of melting.
There is a lot of experience in the forum (I assume others are similar). I have been helped many times since I joined. There is no need to feel you are alone with problem XYZ - you'll find others may have come across it too & someone found the answer. The "Search" button is quite a useful tool if you can't find an immediate answer.
Joda said
05:28 PM Feb 2, 2018
Done a bit of investigation, van fridge is fitted with ,this side up, fridge switch behind the fridge so all good there, will have to do some continuity checks to work out the wire runs, someone has done changes to the wiring which looks like a dogs dinner, could have done better job with my eyes shut, son in law is qualified sparky, coming over tomorrow to give me a hand just to play safe, I knew he would come in handy one day! Going to run fridge direct from car as I did on my old van and never had a problem as I wired car & van with twin core 8mm. Cable, hardly any voltage drop.
Fridge supply in car is wired thru ignition via heavy duty continous rated relay & fused, engine off- fridge off.
We are not big users of battery power, led lights & water pump but have 2- 100ah. batterys so not much need to charge off car.
Thanks again for all the info, gotta love this forum!
JODA
Jaybird said
04:35 PM Feb 3, 2018
The Anderson Plug on my 2012 Jayco is live 12v all the time. must be how Jayco do things.
The 12v feed must be coming from the van - in a similar manner to how mine was wired (via a 70A breaker) to the battery. I've changed the wiring from the Anderson plugs on my van to feed the fridge.
As patrol03, said an auto electrician can help if there are any dramas.
If the Anderson plug is connected to a battery in your van without some kind of isolator then voltage will be available at this plug.
The advanced electrical systems in modern cars sometimes throw warnings when they find something that is not it's normal loading which is what happens when you connect to your van. VWs and Mercedes are are very susceptible to this.
Hope this helps.
Your van setup is not the normal Jayco setup. They do not come with an Anderson plug. They work everything through the 12 pin trailer connector. The wiring through that connector is usually too light to power the fridge let alone trying to charge the battery as well. That is why the previous owner possibly installed the Anderson connector/circuit as a couple of members suggested. There are a couple of things to check:
1,, Make sure there is a fuse in that cable close to the vans battery. If a short circuit occurs it can make a real mess of the battery (and your van.)
2,, Check to see if the previous owner rewired the fridge so it operates from the battery if left on 12 V. If so you run a great danger of destroying the battery due to over discharging the battery a few times if you forget to switch the fridge off when you stop for a while.
They are not difficult to install (but the location to put one in may not be easy to find). I ended up putting it under the floor near where all the cables come off the A-frame & have protected it against the weather/wet roads. They have to be installed "This way up".
The main issue with going via the 12-pin plug is that the plastic plug may show signs of melting.
There is a lot of experience in the forum (I assume others are similar). I have been helped many times since I joined. There is no need to feel you are alone with problem XYZ - you'll find others may have come across it too & someone found the answer. The "Search" button is quite a useful tool if you can't find an immediate answer.